Brake help?
 

I got a good deal on a set of Shimano flat bar brake/shift lever, but they are made for V brakes.My road bike has brakes that are on all road bikes(side pull?) and I going to put flat bars on it.The guy at the LBS said he can make the V brake shifters work.Any body been through this problem before? A couple of people on Amazon in the reviews said they made it by adjusting the mechanical advantage. Thoughts? I'm just trying to save money.

I'm confused by your mechanic. V-brakes are linear brakes. Making V-brake shifters work ought to be a no-brainer.

Ben

Sorry . The type of brake found on road bikes.Side pull?

Some v-brake levers can be adjusted for a shorter/stronger pull.
Depress the lever fully. See if the anchor point of the cable can be moved closer to the hinge of the lever. If it can, you're good.
A decent fabricator might even be able to unhook and move the anchor point of a non-adjustable brake lever. But I know I wouldn't be able to do it fast enough for it to make sense in a commercial situation.
Another option is to run a brake adapter called a "travel agent" in reverse.
Or simply to try the mismatch.
It'll give a bit less braking for a set amount of hand effort, but generally not an overwhelming difference.

The general type is called caliper brakes.
Available as side-pull and center pull. Side-pulls are available in single- and double/dual pivot.

There's a thing called a travel agent that runs the brake cable around a wheel so that the pull on the way out is different to the pull on the way in. My Trek 520 years ago had these to make the V-brakes work with road brifters. I should imagine you can just reverse that things to make them work the other way (ie, make your V-brake levers work with caliper brakes). Maybe this is what your mechanic is thinking of

some multi purpose brake levers have 2 places to put the cable end, closer or further from the pivot bolt.


you could put a MTB Crank and FD on .. its done for touring bikes to get hill climbing gear ratios.

and/or shorter arm V brakes..






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